


Gold Rush

by redheadreader7



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Like slooooowwwwww burn, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mutual Pining, Parent Death, Slow Burn, Swearing, This is jily through and through, anti snape crew, jily, we do not stan snape, we stan jily in this house
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redheadreader7/pseuds/redheadreader7
Summary: Everybody wants you, but I don't like a gold rush...JILY SLOWBURN.Lily Evans has enough to worry about without a war threatening to risk it all. Between trying to maintain her grades, her social life, and her family, she's busy enough.But a certain messy haired Quidditch player keeps popping up in her life, no matter how many times she tries to dodge him. Will she let him in?
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Gold Rush

Chapter 1: Breathe

Lily slammed the door behind her and pressed her back against its wood, trying to steady herself along the straight edge. Marlene always said breathing steady helped to control your emotions. Determined to try something, she started counting. One breath in, everything would be fine. One breath out, pretend not to hear the screaming continuing downstairs. Second breath in, she only had to make it to tomorrow morning. Second breath out, for christ’s sake they’d only had to make it to tomorrow morning without an explosion. Third breath in, was this breathing even working? Third breath out, her blood was still boiling.

Lily gave up and slid onto the floor, picking at the carpet to give her shaking hands something to do. She’d thought they could make it through the summer without a blow out like this if Lily just tried hard enough. So she spent the whole summer bending over backwards to fit into the mold that her sister wanted. She contorted herself into the version of herself that she thought would make everybody happy, erased all the parts of her that mattered most. She spent the whole summer pretending her life didn’t exist. Every moment she spent in their home she swore a vow of silence on all things even vaguely related to magic. She never mentioned her studies, her closest friends, her silly stories from the past year. To any outsider, you’d have thought Lily never left home by the way she spoke all summer.

But Petunia wasn’t an outsider, and she was always watching for some misstep to latch onto. Some reason to blame Lily. An opportunity to prove that Lily was as strange and useless as Petunia hoped. Lily had spent three months trying to disprove everything her sister believed, to show her that she was still normal Lily, the one who had taught Petunia how to ride a bike and how to ask a boy if he had a crush on you. Magic couldn’t take those things away. 

Except, that it had taken those things away. Even though Lily had spent the entire summer pretending her school life didn’t exist, much to the disapproval of her father, it did. And their run in with Severus tonight had proven it. Lily had spent the entire summer trying to put her life in neat boxes and pretend she wasn’t the freak Petunia saw her as, but she was that freak. If magic was disturbing, Lily was every bit as disturbing as they came. Maybe even more so, because damn it, she was a really talented witch after all. 

Lily pressed her ear against the door. Her dad and sister were speaking in hushed tones now, and Lily couldn’t make out what they were saying. She appreciated her dad coming to her defense when Petunia blew up like that, it was awful when Petunia started saying those vile things about Lily.

It was finally time to acknowledge what had been building up for years now. Lily’s relationship with her sister was irretrievable. The girls who played and laughed and got along were frozen in time, stuck in that moment before the strange man knocked on their door and turned Lily’s life upside down. 

Lily climbed into bed and finally let the tears start to fall.

It was an unspoken agreement in their household the next morning that nobody would talk about it. That was how the Evans’ did things, they just pressed on with whatever had to be done and left the bad stuff behind them. Lily was more than happy with that arrangement as she ran downstairs to grab some toast before lugging her trunk down into the trunk of their car. Petunia was nowhere to be found, which was typical these years when September 1st rolled around. The days of Lily’s sister seeing her off on Platform 9 3/4 were long gone. 

But when things had gotten tough, her dad was always her biggest supporter, so of course he was ready well before they had to leave, excited for another year of sending Lily off to school.

“All set to go, Lily Pad?” He asked with a tentative smile.

“Once the trunk is in the car, we’ll be good. I actually managed to fit it all into the one trunk this year.”

He didn’t ask if she was going to go wake up her sister to say goodbye, and for that Lily was grateful. They just climbed into the car and set off on the long journey. 

When they finally arrived at King’s Cross, Lily felt herself breathing lighter. It was finally time to go back, back to the magic and her friends and what now felt like normal life. She could stop pretending none of it existed, and finally step back into her own world. Her stomach turned over with excitement. She reached into her knapsack and held onto the little piece of metal that had carried her through the last few weeks of summer. 

As they pulled into their parking spot, Lily turned over to her dad, suddenly feeling silly for all she’d hid from him in her attempt to keep her lives separate. 

“Dad, there’s something I forgot to tell you about this year. I’ve been named Prefect! It comes with all sorts of responsibilities and work and all that, but it’s a big honor. Only two per house get chosen.”

Her dad beamed with pride and she passed the golden “P” badge over to him. 

“I knew they’d all see how special you are Lily! Just like your mother, you are. Top of everything in school of course. Sorry I didn’t have those sorts of school smarts to pass onto ya.”

He looked up, and Lily pretended she didn’t notice his eyes watering.

“She’d be proud of you Lily. Proud of where you are and that you’re sticking with the magic. I’m proud of you too. Don’t forget it, alright?”

She mumbled an alright and took the badge back, feeling like she was glowing from the inside out. It felt good to finally get to celebrate this, when she’d wasted so much of her summer hiding it. She wished she’d just told her dad earlier on, and swore she’d stop hiding who she was when she went home for holidays. 

They made their way onto the platform, her dad wincing as usual when they passed through the entryway on 9 3/4. Her and her dad hugged goodbye, her dad giving his usual stern “behave!” — Followed by a laugh.

She was pushing through the hall of the train when she bumped into Sirius, who was leaving his compartment. He burst into a huge smile.

“Wotcher Evans, you’re going to knock a man down at that rate! Alright, so how was your summer?”

She smiled a mischievous smile. “Oh it was darling, Black. My whole family and I traveled all across France and just really immersed ourselves in nature. We all had a glorious time feeding each other wine and cheese and just laughing all night. What about yours?”

He smirked, jumping straight back into their old game. “Hate to tell you Evans, but it seems like the only person who had a better summer than you was me. You see, my family traveled all across Greece, hopping islands and helping magical archaeologists uncover new ruins. We all got glorious tans and gained about 5 pounds in pastry.”

They both dissolved into laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. Since they both had such messed up home lives, they’d started this game last year where they described the grandest family time they could think of, to mask how terrible the time at home truly was for them both. It was fun to step into that fictional amazing wold together, and to do it with somebody else who understands.

“Butterbeer bitch session sometime soon then Evans? I think the astronomy tower misses us and our pile of problems.”

“You’re on Black, but we have to be a little more careful this year.” She flashed him her prefect badge.

He groaned dramatically, clutching one hand to his heart and the other to her badge. “PREFECT? You’re bloody prefect? But what about everything we had together? The fire whiskey shots, the late night sneak outs, the pranks down by the lake…”

She rolled her eyes and pushed his hand off of her badge. “I think you have me confused with your late night broom closet hook ups. The only thing I remember us doing off of that list was the firewhiskey shots. Besides, being prefect doesn’t really change things, it just means I’ll be more careful not to be caught now. It was about time for me to learn some self concealment charms anyways.”

He beamed and threw his arm over her shoulders. “Brilliant Evans. I knew you’d never change.”

She decided not to point out that he’d just implied exactly that.

“The way I see it, between your prefect badge and my outrageously good looks, we’ve pretty much got the whole castle under our thumb this year.”

The compartment door they were blocking opened, and a mess of black hair popped out. 

“Sirius! You were supposed to be getting us some pumpkin pasties. Also, hi Evans, have a good summer?” James Potter beamed at Lily expectantly, and she tried to keep her stomach from turning. It was easier to joke about summers with Sirius, but the way Potter asked made her feel like she had to pretend. 

“Yeah, it was nice, uneventful. How about yours?”

“Same deal” he nodded. She doubted that was actually true. Their summers had not been the same deal, but he didn’t know that.

“Mhm, alright, well I’ve got to get going and find my friends anyways.” She rushed her goodbyes and pushed her way though the crowd, hearing James ask Sirius if he’d done something wrong as she made her way down the corridor. 

Lily just wasn’t the sort of girl who told everybody about her problems, and she liked to keep it that way. Sirius knowing about her family stuff was basically an accident, he’d found her crying at 3am in the common room one night and happened to have some firewhiskey and a wicked sense of humor at just the moment she needed it. His family was so messed up too that they could tell each other things without fear of judgement. It had blossomed into an odd but affectionate friendship.

But James had everything. A perfect family, social life, wealth. Pureblood status… He couldn’t understand what her summer was like, and Lily wasn’t going to waste her time trying to explain her shitty summer to a Quidditch Star who saw everything through rose colored glasses.

She finally found compartment number 7 and beamed, pushing her way through. She was immediately tackled with a bear hug by her best friend Marlene, Mary close behind her. The girls squealed and laughed and clutched each other through a chorus of “I MISSED YOU!” 

As they found their seats Mary started right away, filling Lily in on everything that had happened to her that summer. It sounded like quite a few boys had been wrapped around Mary’s finger for the past few months, and she cracked up recalling all the mischief.

Marlene nudged Lily. “See, this is why you need to get an owl already. Your no magic rule over the summer sucks. We missed telling you everything.”

Lily tried to put on her best smile. “Yeah well, you know how my family is. Old fashioned. I reckon I’ll finally get an owl soon though, I was sick of not talking over the summer too. You can send me letters next time around.”

She pretended this was just a shift as they aged, not a result of her finally giving up on her relationship with her sister for good.

They made it halfway through the rest of Mary’s story about the boy who her dad had caught her with in the back of their car before Mary stopped abruptly. “PREFECT?! You’re prefect and you didn’t bother to start with that? God Lily, of course you’re bloody prefect! Oh shoot congratulations, I can’t believe you let me go this long without interrupting!”

Lily smiled, letting herself settle into the excitement she’d been holding back for weeks. “Yeah, the badge came a few weeks ago. I reckon Remus is probably the other Gryffindor? But I haven’t seen him to ask yet.”

Marlene waved off her musings, “of course he is, there’s no real other sane choice is there? He’s the only one of the lot with his head screwed on right.”

They all laughed in agreement. The Marauders weren’t exactly models of responsibility.

The girls spent the next hour laughing and catching up, gossiping and predicting which couples had split or gotten together over the summer months. Lily finally excused herself for the prefect’s meeting, relieved to see Remus with the other Gryffindor badge. He’d be fine to do rounds with. She took inventory of the rest of the Prefects. Dorcas Meadows and Jack Andrews for Hufflepuff, Lara Jones and Henry Brown for Ravenclaw. She’d already known about Severus for Slytherin, but tried not to show too much displeasure that Cressida Avery was his partner. She made Lily’s skin crawl.

The meeting was through with soon enough, and Lily said goodbye to Remus and dashed back to her compartment as quickly as she could. She longed to spend as much of this train ride as possible with her friends where she belonged. She had missed the feeling of belonging all summer and wanted to feel its warmth again. It was so good to be back. Back into her easy friendships, the laughter and joy and joking that happens when you’ve known somebody for years. Back on a train that would take her to the place that felt more like home than anywhere she’d been in a long time. She paused outside the compartment, let it all sink in. She was back, and things would be good again. 

Her smile as she opened the door and slipped between her friends again was the biggest she’d smiled in months.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Long time reader, first time writer! I've been reading Jily fanfics for quite literally a decade, and finally decided to dedicate myself to writing the kind of Jily I want to read. (The recent marauders Tik Tok revival has also been a major source of inspiration...) Hope you enjoy, because writing is giving me so much joy right now and I have SO many big plans for this story!
> 
> Big thanks to my roommates, who pushed me to do this. This would never have been written without them encouraging me.
> 
> Please leave comments, would love constructive feedback!


End file.
